DAYTON, Ohio — The father of a man fatally shot by police as he held an air rifle inside a Walmart said Thursday that he thinks his son was murdered, despite a special grand jury declining to criminally charge the officers.
John Crawford Jr., whose son was shot Aug. 5 at a Walmart in the Dayton suburb of Beavercreek, said at a news conference that he was appalled the officers weren’t indicted. He said he welcomed an announced U.S. Justice Department probe to determine whether his 22-year-old son’s civil rights were violated.
“The officer went in and virtually shot him on sight,” Crawford said. “He did not have a chance.”
John Crawford III was black, and the officers are white. Attorneys for Crawford’s family said they hope a federal grand jury will consider whether or how race was a factor in the shooting.
“It was an unarmed black man that got shot and killed in Walmart, and we can’t hide from that,” said attorney Michael Wright. “We believe that, yes, had Mr. Crawford been Caucasian, maybe the outcome would be different. But it’s very hard at this point to say that that, in fact, was the case.”
Instead, they’re focused on how the officers evaluated the situation and whether they acted reasonably in using deadly force after a 911 caller reported a man waving a rifle.
Crawford was shot twice by one officer, once in the elbow and once in the side under the rib area slightly from the front to the back, said prosecutor Stacey DeGraffenreid, who assisted special prosecutor Mark Piepmeier.
Police said the Fairfield man didn’t obey commands to put down what turned out to be an air rifle taken from a shelf. DeGraffenreid said Crawford was shot while holding the rifle, then dropped it, falling to the floor.
She said the officers did what they were trained to do based on the information they had when entering the store.
Crawford Jr. and the family’s attorneys say surveillance video shows the shooting was unreasonable. They contend Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Piepmeier were biased and set out to defend the police.
DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney denied the allegations, saying DeWine took pains to remove himself from the process.
Piepmeier said he was complimented after the grand jury session by pool members for an unbiased presentation by himself and Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents, Tierney said. Those agents work for DeWine.
